Florida basketball’s Walter Clayton Jr. speaks to the crowd during Gators championship celebration
Florida basketball celebrated the program’s third national championship, won 65-63 Monday night over Houston in San Antonio, Saturday during halftime of the Orange and Blue spring football game.
- Wanda Lloyd, an elementary school teacher, will receive the 5th Avenue Arts Festival’s Patricia Hilliard-Nunn Cultural Ambassador Award.
- Lloyd founded BLLSD, a nonprofit that raises funds for children to attend STEAM summer camps.
- She teaches various dance styles, including DFW swing-out, through her Smooth Flava Dance GNV chapter.
Teaching dance in the community became a big part Wanda Lloyd’s life after she started dancing in 2014.
“At first, dance was just like every other hobby,” said Lloyd, the recipient of this year’s 5th Avenue Arts Festival‘s Patricia Hilliard-Nunn Cultural Ambassador Award.
Lloyd will receive her award during a festival kick-off reception at 6 p.m. May 16 at the Rosa B. Williams Center, 524 NW First St., in Gainesville. Others scheduled to be honored at the event include Barry McLeod with the Outstanding Creative Award, and Angela Terrell with the Outstanding Artist Award.
Lloyd, an elementary school teacher, said dancing led her to start BLLSD, a nonprofit organization whose work includes raising funds for kids to attend STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) summer camps in east Gainesville.
“I taught ‘Teach Me to Dance’ to help students learn a dance routine for a graduation ceremony, and after that I was encouraged to teach dance to adults,” Lloyd said. “The awesome thing about that is that it has grown from a one-time thing into something that has been around for eight years.”
Lloyd’s journey in dance eventually introduced her to the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) swing-out style, where she trained under LaDell Headroe, the founder of Smooth Flava Entertainment Inc.
Headroe in 2016 began teaching Lloyd the DFW style through video lessons. This training not only led Lloyd to become a certified instructor but also allowed her to establish a local chapter of Smooth Flava, known as Smooth Flava Dance GNV.
The chapter provides beginner line dance lessons from 5:45 to 6:45 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Bo Diddley Downtown Community Plaza, 111 E. University Ave. Partner swing, ballroom, stepping and ballroom dance are taught from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at Bartley Temple United Methodist Church, 1936 NE Eighth Ave. The group provides lessons on all styles from 4 to 7 p.m. on Sundays at the Rosa B. Williams Center.
“There is no cost to attend the sessions, but we do ask for donations,” Lloyd said, adding that those attending sessions are asked to join the chapter with dues of $45 monthly that go toward funding the STEAM scholarships and other costs incurred by the chapter.
As a teacher, Lloyd said raising money for students to attend the summer STEAM camp at award-winning Caring and Sharing Learning School in southeast Gainesville is especially important to her.
The chapter last year raised over $25,000 for scholarships, Lloyd said.
Lloyd called her impending honor from the Cultural Arts Coalition (CAC), the longtime organizer of the 5th Avenue Arts Festival, very humbling
“What I’m doing, I do just for fun,” Lloyd said. “I do it just for the love I see in the smiles on the faces of the kids we help. It’s a family affair for us.”
Nkwanda Jah, executive director of the CAC, said Lloyd is being honored for her contributions to the arts in the community.
“Wanda Lloyd and her group has gotten our community up and dancing,” Jah said. “They raise money for kids to go to the summer STEAM program at Caring and Sharing Learning School who can’t afford it.”
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